Discussion with my sister

Me and my sister watched a BBC series North and  South together just to make sure we had something to talk about. But in the end, we always have something to say about movies or series we have recently watched. So we had a discussion about our favourite not so favourite Austin adaptations.

It is always joy to talk with my sister about stories in any language and although my sisters English is slightly less practised, she is a great discussion partner and we always have fun.

The Hand That Signed the Paper

This specific poem is by Dylan Thomas and it´ s called The Hand That Signed the Paper. It is one of the few poems, that I enjoy reading out loud, of whom majority is by Dylan Thomas.

I have started reading poems out loud to myself few years back, when I found that I don't like most other peoples takes on reading poetry. I believe that there should be more emotion shining the speech than other put in.

So now I do it myself. The benefit has mostly been slower and more melodic speech as I try to pace my words better and give myself some space to breathe in the pauses.

Discussion with my mom

This time I choose to speak with my mom, partly due to my sister being on Erasmus and therefore not available, and partly because although her English has always been very good, she has not been frequently speaking a lot and it was starting to show. We chose to watch the most recent movie adaptation of Emma to have something to start our discussion with. And we gradually meandered to other Austen adaptations, her books in general and our choices to read them or not.

I think that compared to the discussion with my sister from previous semester, this one flowed better and that we better managed to balance both sides of the dialog. But that might also be due to the nature of the differences between a sisters' communication style and mother-daughter style. After all me and my sister tend to confuse those listening in on our conversations.

Invictus

This is the second poem featured in my portfolio and although it is still not my most beloved one, I choose it for its nice rhythm and my ease in conveying its feeling. Even then I had to record it several times to be happy with the results. It wasn't the easiest balancing conveying feeling, getting the rhythm and pronunciation right, while simultaneously not hating my recorded voice.

Compared to the previous one though, I think that I have made some progress and that it took less time overall, because I was not making as many mistakes.